Who is sick! - Healthcare in Web 2.0
One of the Internet users like you and me came upon this idea of creating a mashup of Google Maps when his 
wife started experiencing severe stomach pain while they were on vacation. Being late at night and as they were at a new place and did not know the cause of the pain he admitted his wife at the emergency at the hospital where they had to wait for 4 hours only to be told that there was a stomach flu going around and that if the pain didn’t go away in 24 hours, to come back. Since he was aware of the web 2.0 and the applications available he came up with this idea that if there was a web site that had local sickness information based on user created data then people can be aware of the sicknesses that people in a particular area are prone to get and what the symptoms are. Thus whoissick.org was born.
Since the usage was going to be by the common man it was decided that the interface should be kept simple and yet it should have all the features and comprehensive information. WhoIsSick was launched in 2006 with a mission to provide current and local sickness information to the public - without the hassle of dealing with hospitals or doctors. With a strong belief in the power of people and a faith that user generated content can be extremely valuable, the team at who is sick set out to create an entirely new system for tracking and monitoring sickness information.
Given the relatively slower adoption of Internet and “web 2.0′ technology by much of the healthcare industry, the team at WhoIsSick which comprises of healthcare professionals, technology entrepreneurs, mothers, fathers, and caregivers, has set out to create a simple, user-friendly, and valuable web site for the average consumer. Features and updates are being made by the team by expanding the team. Users are encouraged to add information on sickness for that particular area and the resulting mashup provides a current local health snapshot which depends on user participation from that particular area. WhoIsSick gives you many tools to search and analyze the data that is collected as well.
On the whole WhoIsSick is a intriguing little site, but its success would be determined by user usage. As of today now, there are only 1,000 “sicknesses” in current view. Considering this site only started in Feb/Mar 2007 and coverage it’s already received, I’m hopeful that WhoIsSick will one day be a great resource for communities, hospitals, and healthcare providers.
So the next time you are sick use this mashup and keep your community informed!
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